


i want what i want (do you think that i want too much?)

by seeingrightly



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Ghost Drifting, Kissing, M/M, Post-Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 06:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: Hermann shuffles toward Newt. He wants to be near him, to touch him. That’s not unusual. But he finds himself wanting to follow through on the urge, to actually do what he wants and risk the consequences.It’s the rush of the world being safe, or the exhaustion, or the relief that Newt didn’t die. It’s all of those things combined. Still, Hermann knows it’s out of character for him to feel like he can follow through on this, and he tempers it by just moving closer, by letting Newt close the gap between them.Newt slings his arm over Hermann’s shoulder and tugs him in roughly, shaking him a bit, companionable, close, a wide smile on his face. Hermann loses his balance just slightly and, before he can think twice, he seizes the opportunity to catch himself unnecessarily with his free hand against Newt’s chest.or: hermann gets newt's penchant for pda in the drift and then they both freak out about it





	i want what i want (do you think that i want too much?)

**Author's Note:**

> title from gimmie love by carly rae jepsen

 

 

 

Hermann shuffles toward Newt. He wants to be near him, to touch him. That’s not unusual. But he finds himself wanting to follow through on the urge, to actually do what he wants and risk the consequences.

It’s the rush of the world being safe, or the exhaustion, or the relief that Newt didn’t die. It’s all of those things combined. Still, Hermann knows it’s out of character for him to feel like he can follow through on this, and he tempers it by just moving closer, by letting Newt close the gap between them.

Newt slings his arm over Hermann’s shoulder and tugs him in roughly, shaking him a bit, companionable, close, a wide smile on his face. Hermann loses his balance just slightly and, before he can think twice, he seizes the opportunity to catch himself unnecessarily with his free hand against Newt’s chest.

“Hey, sorry,” Newt says quickly, bringing his other hand to Hermann’s arm, steadying him, opening his fist to slide his hand across Hermann’s back and to his shoulder.

They’re very close, and he has all of Newt’s attention. Hermann has never thought less about the consequences in his life. He leans forward and kisses Newt with a confidence he rarely feels about anything that isn’t work.

What he saw in the drift was unclear and jumbled and mainly sensory at the time, but as they flew back to the Shatterdome, as they watched the final battle play out and waited for Ms. Mori and Ranger Beckett to reappear, details of Newt’s memories and thoughts flooded through to him. He’s unclear if it’s ghost drifting or if his brain finally processing what it had access to during their brief time connected, but Hermann knows now how Newt feels about his uncle Illia’s singing, what happened on his unpleasant 10th birthday, and a long series of thoughts Newt has had over the years about Hermann.

Hermann knows before Newt does it that Newt will return the kiss, will lean up onto his toes the way he does with a taller partner. He’s unprepared for the way Newt pulls back a little to laugh, a startled sound he can barely hear over the celebrations surrounding them, before leaning up to kiss him again. Newt shifts his hands to either side of Hermann’s neck, and Hermann shifts his own to Newt’s cheek.

Newt pulls back again to smile up at him before he speaks.

“I saw that you - but I still wasn’t sure if I should - ”

“I know,” Hermann says. “I wasn’t either.”

“But you did it anyway,” Newt says. “What a day, huh?”

He shakes Hermann again, gently, disbelief clear in his expression, but also delight.

“Hey, you two,” Tendo says, knocking on Newt’s shoulder with his knuckles, looking between them with amusement and maybe a little smugness. “Party’s moving to the mess hall. Let’s go.”

Hermann and Newt shift apart, but their hands meet in the middle, with a moment of fumbling before they slot together, not unlike right before they drifted. He’s never been overly fond of hand-holding, certainly not enough to have a preference for how he does so, but his instinct had been to place his hand in front, to cradle Newt’s in his own, and Newt had been attempting to do the same to him. Something about it is sweet.

Other people are looking at them as they walk to the mess hall. Hermann is very conscious of it, but he doesn’t feel anything else he’d expected to feel - concern for whether he’ll still be viewed as professional, if he’ll lose more of the respect he works so hard to earn. Those things don’t seem to matter as much now that the war is over and he’s had a significant hand in that.

In the mess hall, the tables have all been pushed to the walls and people are carrying supplies out from the kitchens. A few J-techs are setting up what appears to be a makeshift DJ booth. Unexpectedly, half of the overhead lights turn off, and Newt laughs.

“You want something to drink?” he asks, turning to Hermann. “Or eat?”

“I rather think I should be offering to get something for you,” Hermann replies. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal -”

“The world almost ended but then it didn’t, Hermann. We’re all going through it. What do you want?” Newt asks, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb toward the table everything is being piled onto.

Hermann shakes his head.

“If I sit down to eat I’m going to fall asleep right here,” he replies. “Water would be nice, though. Thank you.”

Newt pulls his hand away and takes a step back, but then he darts back in and kisses Hermann’s cheek. Before he can move away again, Hermann grabs his arm to stop him, and then he kisses him properly. Newt sighs and floats closer, bumping their chests together and settling his hands on Hermann’s waist.

“One water coming right up,” Newt says, but he doesn’t move away or open his eyes, so Hermann plants his hand in the middle of Newt’s chest and pushes him gently.

Newt laughs and stumbles and flips Hermann off as he turns around. Once Hermann is alone, along the edges of the mess hall, watching Newt weave through the growing crowd, he realizes that he and especially Newt are absolutely filthy, and that everyone else is comparably well-rested and could continue to party for some time. He’s going to have to forcibly drag Newt away for rest at some point.

When Newt comes back, he’s carrying just two bottles of water and has a rueful expression on his face.

“Do I reek?” he asks once he’s close enough. “You probably got used to it but everyone else is looking at me like I need to take a shower.”

“If that’s not a metaphor for our entire relationship I don’t know what is,” Hermann replies, taking one of the waters.

Rather than amused or annoyed, Newt’s expression becomes something Hermann almost wants to describe as shy.

“Right,” Newt says, clearing his throat. “Uh, speaking of our… relationship…”

“Yes?” Hermann asks, but he tempers it by smiling and wrapping his arm, the one he’s holding the water bottle with, around Newt’s waist, drawing him in closer.

Newt looks down at the shrinking distance between their bodies.

“I didn’t expect you’d be like this,” he says distantly, and then he looks up at Hermann sharply. “No, I  _ know _ you’re not like this, dude. I was in your head. I know how you feel about PDA. This is drift bleed.”

Hermann blinks.

He’d been able to rationalize his out-of-character decisions as reactions to the abnormal circumstances of the day, but Hermann saw Newt’s history and his desires. Even without drifting, he could have guessed what Newt would be like, and his guess would have approximated the types of choices Hermann has been making. 

“Ah,” he says. “That… does make sense.”

Newt pulls away from him, takes two quick steps back, looking for a moment like he’s going to run. Hermann follows, tucking the water bottle under his arm so he can touch Newt’s arm.

“To be very clear, Newton,” he says, “about this, about our relationship - the  _ only _ thing that’s been influenced by you is my choice to actually initiate in public. Everything I’ve done I’ve very much wanted to. I just ordinarily wouldn’t allow myself to follow through.”

Newt’s shoulders lower somewhat, and he allows Hermann to pull him a little closer, but he still frowns up at Hermann.

“You’re being influenced by something external, dude, to make choices you wouldn’t normally,” he says. “I don’t think either one of us - I don’t think anyone on the  _ planet _ is the best judge of their own feelings right now. I don’t want you to regret anything later.”

Hermann has to concede that Newt has a point. After some rest and some time to adjust to the new state of the world, Hermann might not feel so carefree about this newfound comfort with, as Newt called it, PDA.

“Yes, alright,” Hermann sighs. “I see what you’re saying.”

Newt looks up at him, biting his lip.

“Look,” Newt says suddenly, all in a rush, “do you really want to stay at this party, or can we go shower and then do whatever we want where no one can see us?”

At the last moment, Hermann curbs the impulse to lean in and kiss Newt.

“Separate showers,” he says, squeezing Newt’s arm instead. “Come to my room when you’re done.”

“Okay,” Newt says, visibly relieved. “Don’t fall asleep before I get there.”

He moves in like he’s going to kiss Hermann on the cheek again, but then he pulls away, smiling awkwardly, which makes Hermann feel just terrible. Even without this complicated situation, his own distaste for public intimacy would require Newt to reign in his natural tendencies for physical affection. He watches Newt head out of the mess hall before heading toward his own room.

Truth be told, Hermann does nearly fall asleep on the chair in his shower. He flinches awake more than once and doesn’t do a thorough job at all of cleaning himself before he’s shutting the water off. He dresses in pajamas, slowly and carefully, and he’s just wondering if he should lie down for fear of not being able to get back up, when Newt knocks on the door.

When Hermann answers, Newt is standing on the other side in a pair of sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt. His hair is unstyled and still damp, flopping against his forehead. Hermann pulls him inside and shuts the door, and then he pushes Newt’s hair back off of his face, digging his fingers into it. Newt moans sleepily, pressing his face against Hermann’s shoulder.

“Come to bed,” Hermann says.

Hermann rests his cane against the nightstand and Newt places his glasses right behind it. He crawls onto the bed after Hermann, planting one knee on either side of Hermann’s waist, not pressing their middles together, just getting as close as he can without resting his weight on Hermann. 

“Pull up the blankets,” Hermann says into Newt’s mouth, and Newt laughs but he listens, tucking them over his shoulders as he dives back in.

Hermann runs his hands along Newt’s back over and then under his shirt, digs his fingers into his hair and then his ass, his touches getting slower as he grows sleepier. Newt’s kisses slow down, too, and though he keeps his ass in the air, not putting any pressure on Hermann’s hip, his upper body grows heavier against Hermann’s. Newt moves his head sideways onto the pillow and Hermann turns his head so they can continue kissing, if barely. Against Hermann’s chest, Newt’s arms have gone still, and soon his mouth does too, hot little breaths puffing against Hermann’s mouth.

“Newton, no,” he says thickly, pushing at Newt’s hip. “My dear, you can’t possibly stay like this. You’re going to hurt your neck or crush me when you fall over in your sleep.”

Newt lets out a moan of protest, but with enough prodding, Hermann convinces him to flop to the side, though he ends up with much of his weight draped over Hermann’s good side. Hermann digs his fingers into that hair again and falls asleep himself right away.

 

Hermann is surprised, for a number of reasons, to wake up to Newt sitting up in bed beside him, his arms wrapped around his legs.

“Are you alright?” Hermann asks, resting his hand on Newt’s back, rubbing at his eyes with his other hand.

“Yeah,” Newt says, though he jumps a little at the touch. “Weird dream woke me up.”

“Oh,” Hermann says, concerned, and he tugs at Newt’s arm until he gets back under the blankets, curled up at his side. “You should have woken me.”

“I don’t think it’s the kind of weird you’re thinking,” Newt says, resting his chin on Hermann’s chest. “No kaiju nightmares yet. I was dreaming your memories, I think. Or seeing what you were dreaming. Not sure which.”

“Anything embarrassing?” Hermann asks, mildly concerned.

“Yeah, dude,” Newt says. “Plenty of the stuff I saw was embarrassing and so was plenty of the stuff you saw. But we’re both still here anyway.”

“Very romantic,” Hermann teases, but he pulls Newt up his chest so he can kiss him, soft and quick. “About our predicament…”

“Oh, now who’s romantic?”

Newt leans up on his elbow, though, so he can look at Hermann directly, a serious expression on his face. He rests his closer hand on Hermann’s chest.

“I have mixed feelings about what I already did in front of others, last night,” he says honestly. “Or - whatever time of day that was, relative to now. I don’t know how much more comfortable with those kinds of things I’ll be able to become, moving forward.”

“You don’t have to -”

Hermann reaches up to hold Newt’s hand against his chest.

“Let me finish, dear. I’ve been in your head and I’m receiving some of your impulses and I understand what public displays of affection mean for you.”

Hermann doesn’t know if he could put it into words. He always thought of PDA as a combination of a lack of consideration for others and a way to boost one’s ego - two traits he saw in Newt. But he also sees, now, what it means for Newt, so often ostracized, to get to prove to others that he’s cared for. He understands how hard it is for Newt to contain the overwhelming affection he rarely gets to bestow on others.

“But even if I didn’t know so specifically,” he continues, “even if we weren’t in this odd situation, I’d still try to find some kind of compromise with you. That’s what I want.”

Newt curls his fingers into Hermann’s shirt and smiles, small and sappy.

“We can try different things,” he says. “FIgure out which stuff you’re more or less uncomfortable with, or under what circumstances.”

“The circumstances are certainly part of the problem,” Hermann says slowly. “Now that the war’s over, we don’t know what we’re going to be doing, do we? I can hardly predict the conditions under which I’d be comfortable doing different things with you, like this.”

Newt nods, loosening his fingers to pat Hermann’s chest, nearly dislodging Hermann’s hand.

“Yeah, okay, we gotta figure out what we’re doing next first,” he says, and then he makes an unhappy little face, but then it smoothes out into an intentionally neutral expression. “Do you wanna like - wait, or not do this, until we decide -”

“ _ No _ ,” Hermann says, a bit louder than he intends to, panic rising in his chest. “I don’t  _ want _ to - I don’t want to feel this way. That’s the  _ problem _ -”

“Hey, okay, I know, I know,” Newt says quickly, soothingly, crowding into Hermann to kiss him, a bunch of soft, little kisses in a row, first on his mouth and then his cheeks. “Hey, I have a dumb idea.”

“What is it?” Hermann asks after a moment, making himself breathe slowly, running his fingers through Newt’s hair repeatedly.

“What if, uh,” Newt says, licking his lips, “we just, like, don’t really go out into public til we figure out what we’re doing? Everyone thinks we’re gremlins who don’t see the light of day anyway, and if anyone’s trying to interview us about saving the world or whatever they can wait til we have real answers about our next steps, right? We’d probably end up holed up answering emails and scoping out job offers anyway. And then we don’t have to make any decisions about, you know, displays of affection that are public. We can just focus on the private ones for a little bit.”

Hermann can feel himself smiling before Newt is done speaking.

“What will we do for food?” he asks, because it’s his job to poke holes in even Newt’s best ideas.

“We can order in. Or one of us can go down to the mess hall alone and bring stuff back. Or I’ve got, like, a bunch of cookies in my room. I can just go get those. They’d last us for a bit.”

“Hm,” Hermann says, pretending to consider his options. “Maybe not the last one.”

“But the rest of the plan is good, right?” Newt asks, his smile tinged with worry.

“It’s a very good plan,” Hermann says softly, leaning up to kiss Newt. “Thank you. I’m sorry for finding this so… distressing.”

“Don’t,” Newt says. “Don’t apologize to me for that. This is basically an unprecedented problem to have. You can be as distressed as you want. No, not want. Sorry.”

He smiles sheepishly, leaning into the touch when Hermann cups his cheek.

“How would you feel about a private display of my affection, right now?” Hermann asks, and Newt waggles his eyebrows.

“I feel pretty good about it,” he says. “What were you think-”

Hermann cuts him off with a kiss, more urgent than any they’ve shared yet. He doesn’t have a specific plan in mind yet for this, or for anything, but here in his room, that’s okay.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [ch3ry1b10ss0m](https://www.ch3ry1b10ss0m.tumblr.com) and twitter at [coralbluenmbr5](https://www.twitter.com/coralbluenmbr5)


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